


Cancel My Subscription To the Resurrection

by Merricat Kiernan (rosa_himmelblau)



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [40]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27351592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/Merricat%20Kiernan
Summary: Frank knows but he can't say.Uncle Mike doesn't know, but he knows.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713





	Cancel My Subscription To the Resurrection

It took two days—two delirious, heartbroken days—for Frank to realize something: Lococco knew. Lococco had known for some time—for over a year. Frank was sure of it. He remembered exactly when Roger's answers had become vague, panacean, calm instead of the carefully controlled anger Frank was used to hearing. He'd chalked it up to leads drying up, to Roger being unwilling to admit that he was failing. And in spite of the way his own heart was breaking, he'd felt sorry for Lococco.

"Feeling sorry for Roger Lococco. I must be an idiot." Still, in the part of his brain that insisted he be one-hundred-percent fair, Frank had to admit that he understood the secrecy of the matter. He hadn't even told Dan, was unsure whether or not he should. He couldn't imagine why it would be wrong for him to, what repercussions might result—but then, he couldn't have imagined most of what had transpired with regards to Vince, would never have imagined he'd find him happily shacked up with the late Sonny Steelgrave, who was not so late after all.

Frank pushed aside his feelings of distaste, the ones that came to the forefront every time he thought of the situation. It was none of his business who Vince was romantically involved with. The only thing that was in any way his business was whether or not Vince was happy and healthy, and he averred he was the former and certainly seemed to be the latter.

Or he had been, anyway. Steelgrave had abandoned him in New York, handed him over to Frank with little more care than you might hand off a kitten from a litter you were trying to dispose of.

All right, that was unfair, and while Frank didn't feel he owed Steelgrave any fairness, not being fair to him had wider consequences. It was like not allowing the Nazi Party the same freedom of speech everyone else was guaranteed: it compromised the whole system. And Frank was for damn sure not going to compromise his own internal system of justice just because he wished Sonny Steelgrave had never been born.

So, to be fair: Steelgrave **had** come out of hiding, to check Frank out and be sure he really wanted Vince. He hadn't had to do it, and it had been a risk, and he'd done it because he truly cared about—

"No, dammit. He did it because he loves Vince, and he wants what's best for him." Saying the words aloud didn’t make Frank feel any better. "And I still don't like him, I don't want to like him, I'm not going to like him.

"So there," he added. "Later, I'll go out in the backyard and eat some worms, and that'll show everybody."

Vince hadn't seemed concerned about being left behind. If he'd been upset about it, he'd kept it to himself. And Frank hadn't heard from him again. They'd said goodbye; what more was there to say?

Nothing. There was nothing more to say. It—whatever "it" was, was all over. Their lives were separated, just as if things had gone Paul's way and he'd been assigned a desk job and Vince had been—

What had Paul's plans for Vince been? Frank couldn't remember, couldn't remember if Paul had even told him. The rest of that evening's conversation had been swallowed by panic over Vince's disappearance. Maybe Paul never **had** said.

Frank could take the light out of the window, go back to sleeping in his bed. Vince was safe. The next time Lococco called, Frank would tell him they'd found Vince's body, that there was no reason to go on searching. He'd either get it, or he'd think Frank had cracked up, and either way, Frank didn't care. It would be the end of their association as well.

He picked up the phone, intending to call Jenny, to make arrangements to see Drake, but instead he dialed Dan's number.

Why hadn't he called Dan first thing? Maybe because he'd gotten out of the habit, because for so long all they'd done was argue about how Frank was handling things, because it had been futile to keep having the same argument over and over, and because every time they had it, Frank could hear the disappointment in Dan's voice and it settled like a lead weight in his heart. And Frank's heart was already too heavy.

But the weights were all gone, and Frank needed to share his light-heartedness with his friend. He'd kept it pent up for too long. 

"Frank, do you know what time it is?"

"No idea. Are you busy?"

"It's nearly two a.m."

"That's great," Frank said. "Let me buy you a drink."

There was a long silence. _Lococco isn't the only one who's going to think you've cracked up. Good thing you didn't call Jenny._

"Right now?" Dan sounded suspicious.

"No, I wanted to make a date with you. Check your appointment book, see when you can fit me in."

"All right, right now. What's going on?"

And Frank couldn't tell him. Vince hadn't said so; Vince had said it was up to Frank about telling his Lifeguard. "I can't say I don't trust him," Vince had said, and his voice was shaking with something—guilt, fear, confusion—it had been hard to tell. "He's my Lifeguard, of course I trust him, it's just—"

"You don't trust anybody," Frank had supplied. He understood completely.

"I'll leave it up to you, Frank. You do what you think is right. I trust **you,** " he'd added unnecessarily. What he'd meant was, he knew Frank was as crazy as he was, as paranoid.

And Frank couldn't tell him. Suddenly, he was very tired, didn't feel like a drink, or like talking to Dan. There was a weight, one, and it was Vince's secret. "That shrink they sent me to—I wanted to tell you. I think we made a breakthrough."

"You're kidding me. You woke me up to tell me that?"

"I thought you'd want to know," Frank said. "I realized today that you were right; you've all been right."

"Right about what?" Dan asked, his suspicion growing exponentially.

"About Vince. My preoccupation has been unhealthy. I've been fixated on him." Frank carefully parroted the words he remembered the OCB psychiatrist saying to him. "He must be dead, or we would have found him by now. I'm going to stop obsessing over him, and go back to living my life."

"What life?" Dan asked, the same question Frank had always asked when handed this groundbreaking little philosophy. Frank laughed.

"That's a separate problem." He laughed a little more.

"Frank, are you sure you all right?"

"Yes, I am." Frank answered, a simple, declarative sentence. "I am now."

**_A Feast of Friends Alive_ **

Dan put down the receiver and stared at the phone, wondering if he was really asleep. The conversation he'd just had couldn't be anything but a dream, could it?

Frank had sounded happy. Frank McPike. Francis Xavier McPike, a man who looked unhappy in virtually every picture ever taken of him, no matter how happy the occasion. He was happy. He was following the advice of his psychiatrist. He was getting on with his life. He was happy, and he was going around saying so.

He was lying, or he'd suffered a severe blow to the head, or maybe he'd started taking drugs. Dan was bettering on the former. If he was lying, and sounding so—peaceful, it was either a very good thing, or a very bad one. Dan remembered from his own brushes with depression that sudden acceptance and peace could be a very bad sign. They could mean that a person had reached a decision and was about to commit suicide. _It's pretty bad when your first reaction to a friend sounding happy is to worry that he's going to kill himself._ It was, but it was also fair. This was Frank, after all, and why should Frank sound happy about the idea of Vince being dead? _He's never believed it, and I don't think there's anything that psychiatrist or any one else could do to make him believe it. The Angel Gabriel could come down and tell Frank that Vince was dead, and if he didn't have a body to show, Frank would tell him to piss off._ Why would he bother to call Dan up in the middle of the night to tell him this lie? Why would he want to go out for a drink, then suddenly change his mind?

Dan picked up the receiver, dialed. It took twelve rings for Frank to answer, and when he did, he sounded reassuringly cranky. "What?"

"You still want to get that drink?" Dan asked.

"It's the middle of the night!" Frank snapped. "I'm in bed!"

"Hey, I was asleep when you called me."

"Well, I'm sorry about that." The peevishness was encouraging, too. Whatever had been wrong with Frank maybe wasn't anymore. Or whatever had been right. Whatever, Frank was Frank.

"Frank?" Dan wasn't sure what to ask. Then he thought of something. "Did you say you were in bed?"

"It is, as you pointed out, the middle of the night. Yes, I'm in bed."

And now it all made sense. Vince was home. Frank wasn't telling him because he couldn't, he couldn't tell anyone, but Vince was home. "Go to sleep. You can buy me that drink tomorrow. I'll meet you at Lynch's."

It was out of the way for both of them—the bar was in Vinnie's neighborhood—but Frank didn't object. "In the afternoon."

"Yeah. Let's both sleep late tomorrow."


End file.
